<?php
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$xhtml = array(
	'title' => 'I&apos;m finally free.',
	'body' => <<<END
<img src="/img/CC_BY-SA_4.0/y.st./weblog/2017/02/21.jpg" alt="A photograph of plant-based scrubbing sponges" class="weblog-header-image" width="800" height="480" />
<section id="general">
	<h2>General news</h2>
	<p>
		The rain continued to fall this morning.
		I keep hoping that the clouds will run out of rain and have to stop at some point lately, but that&apos;s not going to happen; this is western Oregon.
		The clouds don&apos;t run out of rain here.
		I was right to move my stuff in the rain two nights ago instead of trying to wait out the rain though.
		Today is my deadline for getting out, yet the rain continued.
		Eventually, the rain did in fact clear up for a little while, but it was too late to start taking all the stuff that I took two nights ago and the stuff that&apos;s left while still finishing early enough to avoid interference.
		The rainless period was too short to get more than one load moved in anyway.
		Thankfully, my move is now complete.
	</p>
	<p>
		Two nights ago, when I brought the biggest load of my stuff yet, I noticed that I haven&apos;t seen my <a href="https://professorshyguy.bandcamp.com/merch/32gb-usb-30-drive-fragmentation-version">SHYDRIVE</a> in quite a while.
		I wasn&apos;t sure where I&apos;d stashed it, and it certainly wasn&apos;t at home.
		I&apos;d already copied the data from the drive, songs such as Star Stuff (Demo), so it wouldn&apos;t be a total loss.
		Still, since I already had the physical SHYDRIVE, I wanted to actually keep it if I could.
		Today though, I spotted the drive in one of my backpacks that I don&apos;t use as much lately, as I was packing stuff into it.
		Sweet!
		The SHYDRIVE is back in hand.
	</p>
	<p>
		I have more stuff than I thought.
		Much of it is stuff that I left behind when I went to Coos Bay.
		Now that I&apos;m back, so is it.
		I&apos;ll need to sort through my stuff and give away what I don&apos;t need or want.
		The first of my two loads for the day was a bunch of bags, such as backpacks and computer bags, packed full of miscellaneous items (mostly clothing).
		I got home and found my mattress to be dry.
		I also found a pair of pillow cases in on the gratis item table, so I took those.
		I needed a break before taking the next load though, so I headed to the utility board&apos;s conservation center to claim the gratis $a[LED] light bulb that they had promised me via post.
		Unfortunately, they were closed for a couple hours for some reason, and I had come right in the middle of that break.
		No break for me then.
	</p>
	<p>
		My final load was my laptop and a bin of mostly hangers and clothing.
		I&apos;d been able to get the first load home while the weather was dry for a moment, but I ended up taking this load home in the rain.
		I stopped by the conservation center again, and for some reason, they wanted my address.
		Was the offer of a gratis $a[LED] bulb only a ploy to get my address?
		That couldn&apos;t be right.
		They already had my address.
		I&apos;d signed up for service from them, and they needed my address to know what residence to connect to the grid.
		Furthermore, they only sent me the offer of a bulb <strong>*after*</strong> I&apos;d signed up for service.
		If I recall, the envelope was even addressed to me.
		Maybe it&apos;s just to keep people from somehow getting ahold of extra light bulb coupons and claiming them.
		In any case, they handed over the $a[LED] bulb, then asked if I could also use a compact florescent.
		Not one to turn down energy-efficient lighting, I enthusiastically accepted the offer, and they gave me not one, but three compact fluorescents, for a total of four bulbs.
		Nice!
	</p>
	<p>
		In addition to moving out, my mother has asked that I clean their dishes and clean one of the bathrooms.
		I&apos;m not sure why cleaning the bathroom falls on me, but I had been the one in charge of cleaning dishes.
		I&apos;d been overwhelmed and I&apos;d fallen behind on dish duty, though in my defense, I had used zero dishes myself.
		They stack up quickly, and my mother blames it on having a full household, but it&apos;s mostly down to just my mother and Vanessa now.
		I don&apos;t think that Vanessa uses hardly any, which leaves our mother.
		Whatever, one last time.
		When I have time, I&apos;ll go over and wash the dishes one last time and scrub down the bathroom, as well as clean up my bedroom, which the rushed move has left in disarray.
		It was more than just my stuff in there, we were also using my bedroom for storage, not to mention some things that need to be removed entirely such as a bag of recyclables.
	</p>
	<p>
		I knew I would need food in my apartment, and my first thought was to buy a bag of potatoes and bring it on my final trip.
		That wouldn&apos;t work though, as I don&apos;t yet have a pot to cook them in.
		I thought about getting spring rolls to keep me fed for a couple days until I can get to a second-hand store for a pot, but I wasn&apos;t thrilled with the idea of taking a long trip to the store in the rain.
		The store a couple blocks from my mother&apos;s place probably has large bags of potatoes, but the dollar-for-ten spring roll packs can&apos;t be found there.
		I decided to grab some bread from that store though, then get the spring rolls on another trip, but I found that the bread was on sale!
		I grabbed three loaves, but I can&apos;t eat that much plain bread (or I don&apos;t want to, anyway).
		I ended up grabbing peanut butter that was on sale too, as well as some jelly that wasn&apos;t.
		There was jelly on sale, but it was only the name brand stuff.
		The store brand jelly was cheaper full price than the name brand jelly was on sale.
		Until I can better stock my pantry, this is what I&apos;ll be eating.
		I also grabbed dish soap and scrubbers.
		None of my dishes are clean, they&apos;ve all been in storage getting dusty.
		I was looking for regular plastic-net-over-sponge scrubbers, but instead, I found fully plant-based scrubbers!
	</p>
	<p>
		I&apos;m back home now, this time to stay.
		I&apos;ve found that the new power cords for my laptop work (or at least the one that I opened does), so that&apos;s one less thing to worry about.
		I&apos;ve gotten my laundry done for the week too.
		Some of my socks had not been smelling good.
		Between the fact that I&apos;ve had to wear the same socks for a few days, as it had been a few days in between trips home where i could change them, and the fact that it&apos;s been raining a lot lately, they smelled strongly of ammonia.
		I don&apos;t have to worry about that now though; once more, I can change my socks daily.
		You have no idea how good clean socks feel until you&apos;ve been stuck without them for a while.
	</p>
	<p>
		Orbot, or perhaps the mobile itself, cannot understand host names that end in a dot.
		That means that I can&apos;t access my own website from my mobile&apos;s Internet connection.
		I can remove the dot, but the site is crafted to use the dot in requests for other resources and in all internal hyperlinks.
		That means the $a[CSS], JavaScript, and all images are disabled when using the mobile connection.
		It also means the $a[URI] needs to be manually changed in the address bar after clicking on any internal hyperlink.
		To be clear, this is a flaw in the mobile, not in the website, and I have no intention of changing how the website behaves.
		I&apos;m also reminded that I have to disable orWall to get a connection to forward through Orbot at all.
		I can&apos;t really do anything about that though.
		I simply can&apos;t have my mobile set to fetch email.
	</p>
	<p>
		My mother is pretty angry.
		Apparently, they thought that I&apos;d be able to meet my quoted move-out deadline while still cleaning up what they&apos;d asked me to first.
		I agreed to that deadline before they tacked on other stuff though.
		I did as I agreed to do, and I&apos;ll clean up what they want cleaned as time allows.
		If I get my coursework done quickly enough, I can even go work on it tomorrow.
		On second thought, I&apos;ll bring my laptop to their place and work on coursework between cleaning activities.
		In an attempt to appease my mother, I&apos;ve stupidly offered to continually wash their dishes for them.
		Their dishes shouldn&apos;t be my problem, but I&apos;m kind of dumb that way.
		Furthermore, I don&apos;t even think that my offer actually calmed them down any.
		It was made in vain.
		Oh well, maybe in the long run it&apos;ll lessen the hostilities between us for me to help them have that one less thing for them to worry about.
		Now that I&apos;m home, I should be more efficient in my studies, as I have a quiet and comfortable place in which I can study and I don&apos;t have to haul laundry back and forth.
		I also don&apos;t have to deal with their clingyness, which will save time and energy as well.
	</p>
	<p>
		My <a href="/a/canary.txt">canary</a> still sings the tune of freedom and transparency.
	</p>
</section>
<section id="university">
	<h2>University life</h2>
	<p>
		I worked on the discussion assignment tonight.
		Unfortunately, none of the posts that I made are ones that are actually required.
		My brain is on overload though, and I didn&apos;t have the mental fortitude to write up my responses that&apos;ll be graded.
		Still, maybe my posts will help someone else with the topic.
	</p>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			That&apos;s the thing: competitive advantages had because of secret knowledge are artificial.
			In reality, such secrets don&apos;t give you an advantage; rather, they put every other company at a <strong>*disadvantage*</strong>, which gives the illusion that you have an advantage.
			In other words, you don&apos;t have improved products, but you have improved products compared to your competition.
		</p>
		<p>
			Instead of holding back our opponents, we should focus on building up actual advantages.
			Companies can focus on improving production, making connections with more competitive suppliers, having better customer service, and things like that.
			When secret processes and formulas is shared with the world, no advantage is lost, only unjust disadvantages are fixed.
		</p>
	</blockquote>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			Non-disclosure agreements can be used to do one of two things, or both.
			First, they can be used to guard private information.
			Private information is things such as patient records, client history, billing information, and the like.
			It&apos;s stuff that can be damaging to reputations and privacy, but that doesn&apos;t actually harm anyone to keep secret.
			Second, they can be used to keep processes, recipes, and the like secret.
			This is the kind of information that would benefit the public if made public.
			Because this information is kept secret, other companies are having to waste their resources reinventing these same things that have already been invented.
		</p>
		<p>
			One should not break a non-disclosure agreement that they&apos;ve signed, at least not without good reason.
			I&apos;m not arguing against that.
			However, non-disclosure agreements of this second variety are bad for society.
			They hold us back in the name of greed.
			I don&apos;t think the word &quot;protect&quot; as you used it is correct.
			These agreements don&apos;t protect your assets; they instead harm your competition.
			It&apos;s like saying that you&apos;re protecting against your country&apos;s citizens by burning all the good books.
			It&apos;s profitable, for sure, but allowing people to build off of your product, to innovate, helps you too.
			You can use their improvements in your own product and we can all move forward.
		</p>
		<p>
			Maybe you&apos;re right.
			Perhaps my view is that of hard utilitarianism.
			Since joining this course, I&apos;ve been trying to decide which ethical framework best fits how I view the world, and it&apos;s probably utilitarianism or that one I don&apos;t think we got a name on that maximizes human flourishing.
			Maybe that&apos;s a subtype of utilitarianism though.
		</p>
	</blockquote>
</section>
END
);
